Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Family Court
• Civil Court
• Criminal Court
Family Court
• Child Custody Evaluations
• Visitation Risk Assessments
• Grandparent Visitation Evaluations
• Mediation of Parental Conflicts about Children
• Child Abuse Evaluations
• Adoption Readiness Evaluations
• Development of Family Reunification Plans
• Evaluations to Assess Termination of Parental
Rights
Civil Court
• Personal Injury Evaluations
• IME Second Opinion Evaluations
• Assessment of Emotional Factors in
Sexual Harassment and Discrimination
• Worker's Compensation Evaluations
• Civil Competency Evaluations
• Psychological Autopsies
Criminal Court
• Evaluations of Juveniles accused of criminal acts
• Juvenile Pre-sentencing Evaluations
• Juvenile Probation Evaluations
• Juvenile Waiver Evaluations
• Evaluating the Credibility of Child Witnesses
• Assessment of Juvenile and Adult Sexual
Offenders
• Competency and Diminished Capacity
Evaluations
• Adult Pre-sentencing Evaluations.
Insanity vs. Competence
• Relates to the • Competence refers
defendants mental exclusively to the
state at the time defendants mental
the offense occurs. abilities at the time
of the proceeding.
Insanity Defense
An insanity defense is based on the theory that
most people can choose to follow the law;
But a few select persons cannot be held
accountable because mental disease or disability
deprives them of the ability to make a
rational/voluntary choice
What is Insanity?
• Mental illness of such a severe nature that a
person…
– cannot distinguish fantasy from reality,
– cannot conduct her/his affairs due to psychosis, or
– is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior.
Legal Standards of Insanity
• McNaughton Rule
– States that, in order to establish insanity, it
must be proven that at the time of a crime, the
accused had a mental defect (i.e. such as a
mental disease) so that she/he did/could not
know the nature or quality of their crime at
the time of offense--or if the accused did not
know that what she/he did was wrong.
• The Durham Rule
– States that the accused is not criminally
responsible if her/his unlawful conduct is or
was the product of mental disease or defect.
The Original test
• The insanity defense traces its roots back to the 1843
when Englishman Daniel McNaughton shot and killed
the secretary of the British Prime Minister, believing that
the Prime Minister was conspiring against him.
• The court acquitted McNaughton "by reason of
insanity," and
• He was placed in a mental institution for the rest of his
life.
• However, the case caused a public uproar, and Queen
Victoria ordered the court to develop a stricter test for
insanity.
The McNaughton Test
• also called the "right-wrong test"
• a person was not criminally responsible if at
the time of the crime, he did not know the
nature of the act or that it was wrong.
The Jury was required to answer two questions: